


wisping smoke (lead me to the sun)

by postfixrevolution



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3853135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katara shifts with the rising sun.</p><p>[ <i>alternatively: two benders, the fading smoke of old hate, and the glowing warmth of something new. post Southern Raiders, pre Ember Island Players. </i>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	wisping smoke (lead me to the sun)

He wakes up to rain. It’s just a drizzle, the dusting of liquid flecks on his hair and brows, collecting like dew might on a foggy morning by the ocean. Zuko runs a hand through his hair, soaking some of the water up and flicking it off his fingers with the deftness of waterbender. He quickly turns to the dying campfire beside him, sending another burst of flame into the embers as he ignores the contradiction behind his last thought. 

His hands find themselves shoved under his arms as he crosses them, sits up and gazes at the growing flames. The orange is same color of the horizon as the sun threatens to peek up and signalize the coming of dawn. The opposite horizon behind him is still dark. 

The rain is hardly heavy enough to allow it to kill the fire quite yet, but Zuko stares at it as if it could disappear at any moment. His eyes flicker to the sleeping figure beside him, and even in her cool blues and whites, he can still equate her to the resilient flames of the campfire. She breathes so lightly when she sleeps, breaths so shallow that Zuko thinks it would be easy – so, _impossibly_ easy – to mistake her for dead in the middle of a barely moonless night. Just like a fire being embraced by the deadly feather-touches of a light rain, he wonders if she could also disappear at any moment. 

Zuko watches the dewdrop-raindrops collect in her dark umber hair and remembers heavier downpours, icicles coalescing from air as a nameless rat squealed for mercy; he felt the air tremble around him, every single raindrop a heartbeat – _her_ heartbeat — and he had to force himself not to start trembling too, to keep his fist clenched but not smoldering as he barred his tongue from the searing invectives he had for the sniveling excuse of a man before them. He could feel her every twitch in the way the rain caressed his skin during that time, and never could he remember a time when the rain was a part of him so much more than the fire coursing through his veins. 

Ever the light sleeper, Katara shifts with the rising sun. Zuko tries not to stare as the golden rays frame her disheveled hair like a misplaced halo, glinting off the beads of water as if each were a pearl. It overwhelms him quickly – the sun, _not her_ – and Zuko stares back at the fire. The wood is damp and the flames are dying. Katara yawns and it puffs out with no sound and no wisping smoke to lead its memory back toward the sun. 

Her bleary eyes quickly take in her surroundings: the courtyard of an abandoned beach house, a ring of friends around an extinguished fire, and a risen prince with the curves of his face filled and shadowed by a rising sun. 

“I’m the only one up?” she asks quietly, voice coarse and husky from a night of disuse. 

“And me,” he replies. She hums in agreement, a sweet, amost content sound, and Zuko decides not to think too much of it, sitting silently as she inches out of her sleeping bag and stretches. She turns her head to glance at the rising sun and looks back at him, an absent half smile on her lips. 

“Up with the sun,” she comments, a slight laugh to her voice. Katara runs fingers through her rain damp hair, collecting the water with a graceful turn of her wrist. “I could be an honorary firebender,” she jokes, and he follows the flick of her fingers as she dispels all the water and leaves her hair dry. Zuko runs an absent hand through his still wet locks, and then stands up. 

“We should wake them up,” he tells her, nodding at their sleeping companions. None of them look like they would be willing to wake up any time soon, rain be damned, and Katara snorts incredulously. She obviously can tell that any attempt to wake the sleeping teens would be fruitless. 

“Let’s start on breakfast instead,” she offers. “They can wake up when they want to.” Zuko is ready to argue, to point out the rain falling from the sky and the harsh reminder that getting a cold now of all times would not be ideal, but Katara is quick to repartee, “The rain will let up soon; I can feel it.” 

Zuko raises an eyebrow. “You can _feel_ it,” he deadpans, looking at her with an unimpressed gaze. She narrows her eyes at him, and upon rolling up her sleeping bag, throws it effectively at his face. Catching it right before it collides with his nose is a simple task, but nothing prepared Zuko for his own rolled up bag being thrown almost immediately after, sending the force of both bundles slamming into his nose. 

“Arguing with a waterbender now, are you? Looks like _some_ one just volunteered to help make breakfast for everyone!” The cheery smile on her face is evident without seeing it, and with no silent groan of frustration and an exaggerated roll of amber eyes does he follow her as she skips toward the kitchen. 

Leaving the sleeping rolls where they were safe from the slowly lessening rain, Zuko catches up to Katara only to find her already in the process of lining up their latest purchase of vegetables and rice on a table. Her back is to him, but she effortlessly manages to order him to heat up a pot of water upon entering the kitchen. Somehow, Zuko does as he is told without a comment on her commanding tone, and as he places an already steaming pot of water (thank you, bending) over the stove, he leans back against the counter and watches her work. 

Katara is just cutting vegetables, her back to him and her form outlined by the rising sun in the window before her, but something in the relaxed set of her shoulders is calming. He lets the methodical thudding of her knife against the cutting board fill his ears, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. The chopping beats almost sound like a metronome, ticking out an allegro time to the harpsichord ballads he learned as a child. If he concentrated enough, he could trace his feet along the dance that accompanied it. There would be a fluttering wisp of smoke and a pair of hands that would try to catch it; one dancer all toes and fluid grace, the other a solid determination, an unbreakable curiosity. 

Zuko finds himself suddenly torn from his reverie, a twirl of umber and a flash of blue the last thing he pictures before a tan hand is waving frantically before his face. Her other hand on her hips and her lips set in a small frown, she clucks her tongue at him, her rolling eyes tinted with the half-hidden flicker of a smile. She turns around before he can see it grow larger. _Zoning out, are we?_ he can hear her tease quietly. There's no spite to it. Picking up her cutting board of chopped produce, she tells him to move aside. 

“Unless, of course, you're volunteering to cook for me?” she adds innocently, turning back to him with a smirk on her face and challenge in her eyes. Zuko almost considers agreeing just to see how shocked she would be, to see how the expression pulls at her lips outside of a spar, how it alights her eyes when they aren't hardened in a battle ready glare. He _almost_ agrees, but doesn't. 

“I like your cooking better,” is his immediate response. Then, he blanches. “I mean, not that _I'm_ a bad cook or anything! I'm a great cook, actually!” She raises an eyebrow at him. “B-but, not as good as you, I bet! I mean, not that I've never had your cooking before. Because I have, so. Uh.” He rubs at the back of his neck, looking away from her, at the empty ground between the tips of their toes. They're closer than he expected. “You cook good,” he finishes lamely, an embarrassed murmur aimed toward the floor that still manages to reach her ears. 

At his clumsy prattling, Katara giggles, a light and soft sound, and Zuko brings his gaze up from the ground to look at her. 

“Thank you, Zuko,” she chimes, simply and sincerely. The morning sun behind her, halfway up in the sky, blinds him, but he doesn't need to see her brilliant smile to know it is beautiful. 

**Author's Note:**

> I did it. I gave up and finally wrote some trashy fic for one of my oldest favourite twosomes. And now I want to watch the entire series again. Yup.


End file.
